Chapter 3 concerns Hegel’s use of the term “the Concept” (der Begriff) in the Doctrine of the Concept. The chapter argues that the use of this term is closer to its ordinary philosophical meaning than is claimed by standard metaphysical readings of the Logic. In particular, the singular use of “the Concept” is a synecdoche for the structure of conceptual thought as exemplified in philosophy in general. Hegel argues that conceptual thought has a formal structure of universality, particularity, and singularity. However, in contrast to many interpretations, these are not treated as properties that all concepts must have to be concepts. Rather, these formal features are exhibited variously in different concepts, judgments, and syllogisms. Hegel’s discussion of the formal dimension of thought sets up his attempt to show that some structures of thought more perfectly exemplify the form of the Concept than others.

Vienna’s reputation as the ballroom dancing capital of Europe was already secured by the end of the eighteenth century and continues to this day. This chapter examines the rich history of dance in Vienna from the eighteenth century – the period of the first public ballrooms as well as the emergence of ballet as an independent art form – to the present day. It discusses Viennese ball culture and its iconic dance, the waltz, which is the part of Vienna’s history that has been most influential on wider dance culture, and originated the most recognizably and distinctively ‘Viennese’ musical style.

This chapter reads the Moroccan novelist and theorist Mohammed Berrada’s literary-critical memoir Mithla ṣayf lan yatakarrar (Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated, 1999). A former Souffles contributor, Berrada laments an Arabic in Summer that is recognizable as the emotionally potent, transregional Arabic that propelled the Moroccan avant-garde. Berrada’s memoir, which moves between Egypt and Morocco, ties this Arabic to the Egyptian president and charismatic Arab nationalist leader Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasser’s 1956 Suez speech as the unrepeatable origin of anti-colonial, Arab revolution. In Summer, Arabic was once transregionally alive, but it is lost in the present. Summer makes the narrative of this loss – at once linguistic, political, historical, and emotional – the necessary task of the Arabic novel at the end of the twentieth century. Revisiting themes of gender and corrupted language, Summer expresses nostalgia for Nasser as a benevolent, Arab nationalist strongman and for the emotional experience of decolonization. In its theory of the Arabic novel after Arab nationalism, Berrada’s memoir imagines itself relaying the solitary voice of an author (who also reads transregional Arabic novels about the end of revolution) to his distant, equally isolated Arab reading publics.

The fin de siècle’s newly emerging scientific discourse of homosexuality was part and parcel of a broader tension between ‘materialists’ and ‘spiritualists.’ Whereas the former believed that human agency was fatally compromised by the determining influence of hardwired compulsions, the latter insisted on the existence of free will and man’s higher calling to resist basic impulses. For this reason, the notion of congenital homosexuality was an unacceptably radical one to the spiritualist faction of liberals and Catholics, which dominated among Belgian intellectuals and policymakers. Like those abroad, Belgian spiritualists associated the notion of inborn homosexuality with socialism in general and with the left-leaning French Third Republic in particular. This chapter zooms in on a series of international conferences to demonstrate how deeply interwoven the issue of homosexuality was with wider ideological tensions. It also shows why in Belgium the issue was sidelined so that its controversial nature would not stand in the way of penal reform.

This case presents a disaster medical scenario where healthcare professionals respond to injuries following a volcanic eruption and a subsequent lightning strike in Indonesia. The scenario begins with a medical team deployed to a field hospital one week after the volcanic eruptions, only to face a mass casualty incident caused by a lightning strike. The narrative focuses on key elements of mass casualty triage, particularly the unique considerations for lightning injuries, such as reverse triage, where typically nonsurvivable patients may be prioritized for immediate resuscitation. Critical medical management decisions are outlined, including the resuscitation of a pulseless, apneic patient who ultimately regains spontaneous circulation after Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) is applied. The case emphasizes scene safety, reverse triage during lightning events, and teamwork in evacuation procedures. The scenario also highlights the complications of head and neck trauma, rhabdomyolysis, and the need for a higher level of care.

Chapter 10 offers a summary of the structure, methodology, and findings of the book. It highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the investigation, in particular how a philosophically grounded argument can bear upon the reasoning of the Court while simultaneously addressing a pressing societal challenge.

Research concerning the variety of close relationships adults maintain, initiate, cease, and lose during middle and later adulthood has been fast growing in recent decades. Much of the theoretical and empirical work in this field has aimed to overcome views of older age as a time of loss and decline, both individually and socially. Moreover, recent trends have focused on the increasingly diverse experiences of the aging population. This includes not only extended life expectancy – and, importantly, extended healthy life expectancy – but also demographic changes, including larger proportions of racial/ethnic minorities attaining older age; new cohorts of openly LGBTQ adults entering mid and later life, many of whom represent the first generation of same-sex married couples; and the phenomenon of “gray divorce” and romantic repartnering in the years beyond age 50. This chapter will cover both the history and foundations of research on close relationships in middle and later life, as well as these recent trends in the field, finishing with an eye toward future directions as both the aging population and our perceptions of it continue to change.

This chapter examines Barry Buzan’s reconceptualization of world society as a master concept of international relations (IR), which is part of his wider project of reconvening the English School (ES) of IR. In his seminal work From International to World Society? (2004), Buzan clarified the concept of world society and elevated it to a theoretical cornerstone of his socio-structural reworking of the ES. By introducing three analytical domains – interstate, transnational, and interhuman society – Buzan also charted a novel path for studying the interactions between states and non-state actors. Later, Buzan refined this framework by identifying three versions of world society – normative, political, and integrated – which enabled a more systematic exploration of the primary institutions that structure world societal relations. However, with Making Global Society (2023), Buzan pivots towards a merging of IR, historical sociology, and global history, framing world society as a transitional phase in humanity’s socio-political evolution rather than a standalone analytical category. This shift replaces world society with global society as the main master concept, inadvertently reducing world society’s status within ES theory. The chapter critically assesses this intellectual trajectory, evaluating its implications for big picture analysis, while reflecting on the persistent conceptual ambiguities surrounding world society debates.

By opening the ‘black box’ of what is said and done in the trial hearings of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the chapter shows that the syllogistic reasoning found in the ICC’s case law and judicial decisions is not a straightforward application of ‘rules’ to ‘facts’, but a contingent discursive achievement that reflects a particular socio-political environment. The discussion of court transcripts from the cases of a Ugandan rebel commander and a Malian jihadist combines a long tradition of sociolinguistic and linguistic-anthropological work on text trajectories and the ‘instability’ of travelling texts with Koskenniemi’s anti-foundationalist re-specification of legal discourse as a ‘language game’. The chapter shows that, first, the recontextualisation of the everyday lives of perpetrators and victims of international crimes with the abstract legal framework of the Rome Statute relies heavily on commonsense understandings of the relevant legal concepts, and, second, that such judicial ‘fact-finding’ and its attendant discursive transformations in turn inscribe international criminal proceedings in a range of broader (geo)political contexts.

Chapter 10 covers the first of the three background factors of store atmospherics – sound. The direct behavioural response to playing music and sound in stores has been studied for a long time. Early research, for instance, showed that the tempo of the music had an influence on how quickly shoppers walked. More recently, the focus has been on how the shoppers perceive the music, so that if the music makes shoppers happy it will increase both the positive attitude towards the store and the money spent on the shopping trip. There is also research showing that music can have a spreading activation effect. Hence, playing classical music might activate thoughts of more premium products, which make shoppers buy more expensive brands. Some studies have focused on how music might interfere with decision-making, and that popular music might make shoppers sing along with the music and consequently forget to buy what they intended. Along this vein of research, a recent study found that on weekdays, when shoppers’ working memories were depleted, the music served to make the shoppers happier and hence increase their spending. On weekends, however, shoppers were less depleted and happier, and then the music rather interfered with their decision-making, so it had a null or even negative effect on the spending.

Chapter 1 surveys the Platonism of Marburg neo-Kantian philosophers to set out the context out of and against which Heidegger’s Destruktion of Plato emerged. I do not argue that Heidegger’s Plato is a direct response to the Plato of Cohen, Natorp, and Cassirer. I contend instead that what Heidegger identifies as unprecedented and extremely influential mistakes in Plato’s philosophy are sometimes found in slightly different and sometimes strikingly similar forms in their laudatory interpretations of Plato. The clearest and most evident case in this regard is their interpretation of Forms as laws governing thinking, particularly logical and propositional thinking. I argue that if Strauss, Gadamer, and Krüger propose new reactivations of Platonism to respond to Heidegger, these reactivations cannot follow the Platonism of Marburg Neo-Kantianism to their ultimate conclusions. At the same time, it is also clear that there are important traces of a neo-Kantian heritage in the ways Strauss, Gadamer, and Krüger understood Plato, most notably the Marburg Neo-Kantian refusal to understand Platonic Forms as beings, things, or substances.

People form different types of relationships with others. One common, valued, type is a communal relationship. In communal relationships, people assume responsibility for one another’s welfare and give and seek responsiveness non-contingently. Here we review ways in which communal relational contexts shape people’s emotional lives. In communal relationships, giving and receiving non-contingent responsiveness is linked to positive emotion, whereas failure to do so or behavior indicative of following inappropriate norms (e.g., norms governing transactional relationships) leads to negative emotion. In addition, the presence of communal partners often reduces threat and enhances the intensity of positive and negative reactions to environmental stimuli. Communal contexts are associated with greater expression of emotions signaling one’s own needs (which partners sometimes socially reference as signs of their own needs) and with expressing more indicative of empathy and care for the partner. All these effects can feed back and strengthen communal relationships.

We examine family systems and family relationships. Using family systems theory (Cox & Paley, 1997, 2003; Minuchin, 1985), we focus on how families are viewed as a hierarchically organized system, comprised of smaller relationships (i.e., subsystems) such as parent–child relationships, embedded within larger systems such as extended families and their broader social ties. We organized the discussion of subsystems as follows: (a) Core subsystems, including relationships of romantic partners, coparenting alliance, parent–children, and siblings; and (b) Subsystems with broader social ties, in the form of extended family and/or intergenerational ties, including coparenting alliances in post-divorce or foster families as well as parents and parents-in-law relationships. We also consider these various subsystems within and across diverse families and family contexts, attending to aspects of gender, family structures, income, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, cultures, and national origins. We end with suggestions for future research (e.g., combining the lenses of family systems with intersectionality).